


will make them pay for the things that they did

by 10redplums



Series: waterdeep heist campaign [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Aasimar, Bullying, Gen, Menstruation, Pre-Canon, Puberty, School Violence, Teaching kids to fight, Trans Character, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28591341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/10redplums/pseuds/10redplums
Series: waterdeep heist campaign [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095014
Kudos: 1
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	will make them pay for the things that they did

_ It’s hard being an angel and growing up. It’s hard, and nobody understands. _

Marek comes out of the womb looking fairly normal.

Bronze skin like his is common, and his parents have no reason at first to think anything out of the ordinary. Dark bronze hair is similarly common, golden eyes less so. And it isn’t until he’s about five that, on very rare occasions, when you turn him correctly, he gleams like polished metal.

Still, he grows up like any other child. His milk teeth fall out and new ones grow in. He gets his knees scraped. Falls off a tree and breaks his arm and cries for his mother, and she’s there to pick him up again. He grows up quiet and bookish, which is not-unusual enough. Another couple across the street has an even more reclusive first child. The two of them communicate through trinkets on their windowsills. He grows up.

He menstruates like any other child. Panics and goes to his mother, who explains what’s going on. The doctor, later, will tell him his active lifestyle is good for regular courses, and Marek makes a note of it. The active lifestyle was not started with regular courses in mind; the active lifestyle was started with the intention of having an outlet for the aggression blooming in his heart. 

A portion of his classmates are discovering sex and romance beyond theory, but more importantly to Marek in particular a significant portion his classmates are discovering emotional abuse. Marek, chubby bookish Marek, weird in both behavior and skin, is learning this firsthand. (Several other students are. One classmate’s mother has already come and reamed out several students.)

So Marek embraces his capacity for violence at a young age. Harasses some of the retired soldiers into teaching him to fight. His mother worries, at first, but it’s fine. It’s always under supervision. He learns the basics of the sword. The spear. The glaive. He never really sheds the weight, eats a lot to keep up with the strain, to his parents’ satisfaction, but he grows taller. Strong.

Strong enough that, when he’s had enough of crying in bathrooms, he gives the ringleader a black eye with little trouble. Cusses him out with words he learned from the old soldiers and kept hidden until now, when he needs it. In the ensuing tussle he also gets some bites in, which is more satisfying than he’d expected. Not that he’d fantasized about it much. In his fantasies he’s an amazing fighter, measured and collected. The reality is, of course, less glamorous. Still, he gets some bites in before the teachers pull them apart. In the ensuing lecture from the teachers he cries, which he won’t know how to feel about when he looks back on it in the future, but in the moment it tips things in his favor. Marek, soft bookish Marek, who is so good at math and whose worst offense is the occasional nap in class. Clearly he was bullied until he felt he had to retaliate.

It’s not entirely false.

His parents admonish him, of course, but they know how he felt. The old soldiers clap him on the shoulders and say good on him for showing those bullies a thing or two. He glows under the praise and resolves to become even stronger. His classmates do not learn, only move their attentions elsewhere, but for the rest of his school career Marek is untouchable.

In the future he will say goodbye to his parents, to the soldiers, to the reclusive first child across the street. In the future he will see more weapons than he’d thought possible in his little town. (In the future there will be deer, and then dogs, and then a bear.) In the future, he will have a body no one in this town will have ever seen.


End file.
